


Broken Roots

by methdrips (Encre)



Category: Breaking Bad
Genre: Gen, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Episode: s05e16 Felina, Post-Felina, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, i just need jesse to be okay man
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-06-10 22:17:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15301224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Encre/pseuds/methdrips
Summary: After escaping from Jack Welker's gang, Jesse Pinkman makes it to Ketchikan, Alaska, and tries to start over again. After a failed suicide attempt, he finds solace in an unexpected place.





	1. 1

Jesse had thought that freedom was supposed to change everything. It was supposed to make him feel different, to take away some of the burning rage inside of him. Escaping from that cell, killing Todd, seeing the end of Mr. White -- that was supposed to be cathartic. But it hadn’t been. 

He’s still angry. Still bitter. All the freedom had done was make the world seem bigger for a little while, and now it feels like it’s shrinking again. Closing in around him while he sits up here, looking over hills and rivers from the summit of Deer Mountain. The view is magnificent. Miles and miles of trees and grass and water that stretch endlessly in every direction. Jesse thinks that sitting here ought to change his mind about ending his own life. He should feel like there are endless possibilities, like he can do anything he sets his mind to, because he’s free. He should feel happy. But he doesn’t feel that way. 

He feels trapped. 

A fall from this height will kill him, and he knows it. He swings his feet over the edge of the cliff, looking down at the deep blue waters of Ketchikan Creek. The morning air is crisp and sharp and along with the breeze comes the scent of rain. 

The storms hadn’t bothered Jesse, at first. It had been pouring when he’d first arrived in Ketchikan, and the rain had spoken to him in an ancient language that he felt desperate to understand. He’d wanted to hear more of it, to become fluent in the ways of the rain and the wind. It never rained in Albuquerque. Moisture had been a welcome reprise from the brutal, dry heat of the desert sun. But soon the storms had become the bane of his existence -- just something else that made him feel trapped, like there was nowhere to go. There’s always mud everywhere, and it’s always cold. The sun is always hidden by a thick cover of menacing grey clouds, and there’s so much mist over the water in the morning that he can stick his hand out in front of him and lose sight of it.

He’d been naive to come here and assume that everything would change. That somehow, being as far away as he possibly could from his past would make him feel just as far away from his trauma. The unfortunate truth is that, as much as he wants to, Jesse cannot escape from himself. He’s haunted by the memories of people he’s hurt. Plagued by hallucinations and chronic pain. He thought he’d be able to handle it, that if he could survive six months of torture in a hole in the ground, that he could survive anything. He’d been wrong. 

He would rather be back in that cell, being beaten within an inch of his life, being burned and carved up, than be living with the aftermath. Nothing is enjoyable anymore. He can’t focus on anything, he can’t sleep, can’t look in the mirror. He’s down to his last $20. He doesn’t have a job, doesn’t have any sort of credentials. Nothing but a fake ID and the skeletal remains of the money he’d taken from Todd’s car. His friends and family are all still in Albuquerque and he’s never going to see any of them again. Jesse’s life seems to be an endless cycle of hitting rock bottom and then being surprised that he’s somehow been able to get lower. He didn’t think it was possible for things to be worse. He seems to be wrong about a lot, lately. 

The expanse of the Alaskan wilderness stretches beneath him, never ending. The wind calls his name, beckoning him over the edge, urging him to leap from the summit and plummet a thousand feet to his death. Jesse tips his head back. Closes his eyes. Rain begins to fall upon his scarred face, slowly building from a sprinkle to a torrent of droplets that soak his clothes and his hair, chilling him to his very bones. Jesse thinks about the choices that he’s made. Thinks about Jane, about Gale. About how, had he left when Mr. White had asked him to, he could have escaped the worst of it, gotten out before his face and body had been disfigured beyond recognition. Before he’d gotten Andrea killed. 

Jesse grits his teeth against the torrential rain, the hatred for himself reaching a boiling point in the furnace of his heart. He scoots closer to the edge. 

“Don’t do it, baby. It’s not worth it,” Jesse opens his eyes. He’s alone. The words seem to be carried with the wind, tickling his ear. It’s Andrea’s voice. “Please. I know you don’t want to do this.”

“You don’t know shit,” He tells her, voice drowned out by the storm. “You’re not even alive.”

There’s a far-off crack of lightning that sets his vision ablaze for a few moments, ears ringing at the following thunder. It takes several seconds for his hearing and vision to come back to him. It’s quiet after that. Andrea’s voice is gone and Jesse is alone again, consumed with rage and grief and confusion. He curls in on himself, sobbing into his hands. 

\--

The hike back down the mountain takes him hours. He’s not dressed properly, he has no water, and his clothes are soaked. In his defense, he really hadn’t been planning on coming down this way. His preferred method of transportation would have been much quicker. 

Jesse stumbles down the wet, rocky path, his fingers throbbing against the cold wind and icy rain. He curses his ineptitude. He’d been an idiot to think that he could go through with it, that he would have the courage to just end it all. He’s a coward. Jesse’s tears feel warm against the cold morning air, bringing hot trails of fire with them as they cascade down his cheeks. The wind seems to blow right up against him no matter which direction he travels, and the rain is so cold and hard that it feels like tiny knives against his skin. Jesse finally concedes, collapsing against a thick tree and taking shelter beneath its emerald pines. 

No way in hell he is making it down the mountain in this storm. 

He’s only been in Ketchikan a few weeks, but he knows by now that the storms can last for hours, sometimes days. He hopes he gets lucky and that it passes quickly, but he doubts that it will; Jesse Pinkman has never been lucky. 

The storm goes on for what seems like forever. He’s shivering with cold. A thick hoodie and a leather jacket are no match for the brutal Alaskan autumn. With the wind chill, Jesse would bet it’s ten degrees out here, and he’s soaked to the bone, shaking hard. Maybe this is how he’s supposed to die -- not jumping from a cliff, but freezing to death on the side of a mountain because he’s an idiot. Jesse leans back against the tree and heaves a defeated sigh. 

It all just seems so pointless. Why continue living when he has absolutely nothing to look forward to? What’s the point, if he’s just going to end up on the top of this mountain every week, bent on suicide, only to have his own hallucinations talk him down from the edge?

He’s crying again. Loudly. It’s almost impossible to stifle himself, and it doesn’t seem to matter, because his wails of desperation can easily be carried off by the wind, taken from his throat like they were never there in the first place. 

A twig snaps in the forest behind him and instantly he’s quiet, on his feet, blue eyes searching the forest for signs of movement. His tears and the rain make it almost impossible to see anything, but Jesse thinks he can make out a figure approaching him through the thicket of hemlock trees. Anxiety overtakes him. He isn’t safe. He hasn’t felt safe since he got out of that fucking hole in the ground -- an unfortunate consequence of being kept in a confined space for so long. Nothing feels safe or comfortable outside of his prison. He’d felt like he’d been there for years. For his entire life. Like he’d been born there, in that cell. He doesn’t know who he is without his captivity.

A voice calls out to him. “Hello?”

Jesse doesn’t say anything. He takes a few cautious steps back -- if he can’t see the stranger, then the stranger shouldn’t be able to see him, either. Jesse backs himself up, tucking his body behind the thick trunk of a pine tree. For someone so determined to die, he certainly does have a strong sense of survival. 

“Hello?” The voice calls again, closer this time. It’s a man’s voice, Jesse thinks. An irate, older man’s voice. “Who’s out there?” 

The stranger steps into view and Jesse’s overcome with a bone-deep sense of nostalgia. The man bears a striking resemblance to Mike, if Mike had had longer hair and a thick beard. The man is draped in several layers of flannel and a pair of blue jeans, holding his thick, calloused hand up to shield his eyes from the torrential rain. 

Jesse’s first thought is that this man is not real. He’s another hallucination produced by Jesse’s own damaged psyche, something from his past come to haunt him. Even if Jesse could reach out and touch the man, he’s not sure that he would be confident in the reality of him. He can no longer trust his own mind. He can’t trust his warped perception of reality. Jesse’s beginning to lose himself in the sheer despair of the situation when the old man speaks again.

“... Are you alright?” 

Jesse’s shocked at the question until he realizes that he’s stepped out from behind the cover of trees. Not of his own volition, certainly. He doesn’t remember moving. He had been planning to stay hidden until the man went away. 

“Um.” Jesse says, so quietly that even he can’t hear himself. 

The man steps closer. He’s close enough that Jesse could take a generous stride forward and touch him. “What the hell are you doin’ out here?” 

Jesse opens his mouth to say something, but realizes that he can’t explain anything about the situation -- it’s too fresh of a wound to go digging around in it just yet. So instead he shrugs, as if that’s somehow a satisfactory explanation as to what he’s doing on a mountain in the middle of a rainstorm. The man’s suspicious gaze says it all -- he’s not going to believe a word Jesse says, no matter what. 

Anxiety rises higher in Jesse’s chest. Whoever this stranger is, he has the upper hand here -- he probably has knowledge of the forest and its inhabitants, probably has a gun, probably has been in Ketchikan longer than Jesse’s even been alive. Thank god it’s raining. Otherwise, Jesse’s tears -- Jesse's weaknesses -- would be much more glaringly obvious. 

Jesse can feel the man’s scrutinizing gaze upon his face -- he can feel the man’s eyes burn holes into the scars that are etched there. Jesse meets his gaze. Holds it for a long time. 

“... Ain’t you cold, son?” 

Jesse’s surprised by the sincerity in the stranger’s tone and he finds himself nodding slowly, almost unconsciously. 

The man stares into Jesse’s eyes as if looking through his icy blue irises and straight into his soul, deciding whether or not he likes what’s there. There’s a long silence between them. All that Jesse can hear is the pouring rain and distant, rumbling thunder. The stranger finally looks away. Jesse's passed the test.

“... Alright then. Come on.” The stranger motions for Jesse to follow him and turns suddenly, walking back in the direction that he came.

Jesse stands in the rain for a while, weighing his options. It doesn’t take long to come to the realization that he’ll more than likely die out here if he decides not to follow the strange man, and that’s enough incentive for him to move his feet. The longer Jesse spends living, the more he realizes that he doesn’t actually want to die. He follows the old stranger to a little log cabin nestled away in the woods, a few hundred yards from where Jesse had been sitting. The abode is tucked into a clearing, raised on wooden supports that allow for rainwater to travel down the slope of the mountain unhindered. There’s a soft, golden light glowing in the windows, illuminating the lacy curtains that drape over them. Jesse can smell a wood fire burning over the intense petrichor of the storm. 

The man opens the wooden door and turns to Jesse, almost impatient. The golden light from inside floods the wooden boards of the porch and the door seems like a great maw, opening to consume all wanderers who come across it. “Well, come on, now. I ain’t got all day.” 

“Sorry,” Jesse says, and he stumbles forward, swallowed by the mouth of the stranger’s cabin.


	2. 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to Zeal, Elli and Victoria for helping me edit this chapter!

Todd and his uncle don’t waste any time upon arriving at the compound. They unload Jesse from their sedan and drag his limp body to a spacious, dimly-lit warehouse, where meat hooks dangle from the ceiling, swaying, sinister. They hang Jesse from his wrists, so his feet are just barely touching the ground. He lets his gaze fall to the dusty floor, where there are smears of dark, rusty blood. It looks like it’s been there for quite some time and they haven’t ever bothered to clean it. Some stains are brighter than others. Fresher. Jesse wonders what his blood will look like amongst the rest; he wonders if Todd and his uncle will be able to feel the fury in his veins when they break him open, feel the anger seep into the aging concrete and settle there. He hopes it haunts them. 

Both of them are silent, leaving Jesse to hang lifelessly from a meat hook in the center of the room while they gather all sorts of tools, laying them out on a table in front of him, all of them insidious and each more deadly than the last. He stares at a pair of rusty kitchen scissors on the table. Something that had once been so familiar to him -- something used to cut wrapping paper, to open packages -- is now distinctly malevolent. Bitter. Hateful. Something that he knows he’s never going to be able to look at the same way again.

Todd’s uncle -- Jack -- turns to Jesse, taking a few steps towards him. “You tell me what I wanna know and this’ll go nice n’ easy for all of us. Real quick.” He snaps his thick fingers in Jesse’s face. “Like that.”

Jesse doesn’t even look at him. His mind is still occupied by the parting words of his former partner. He thinks of Jane. He thinks of the fact that he’s given up everything in service to a man who’d watched the love of his life die and done nothing, letting Jesse internalize that guilt, letting it consume him. If manipulation is an art form then Walter White is a artist and Jesse Pinkman is his masterpiece. A masterpiece whose loyalty and utility has been long outlived.

Jesse’s yanked down out of the clouds when Uncle Jack’s fist collides with his face with so much force that, had he not been suspended by those cold, iron chains, he would have been knocked to the ground. He gasps despite himself, feeling warm blood fill his mouth and drip from chin, joining the other stains on the dusty ground. His feet drag along the concrete as he swings helplessly from his shackled wrists. 

Uncle Jack speaks again. He sounds irate. “You hear me, Pinkman?” He shifts his weight on his feet, stepping closer, grabbing Jesse by his shirt and yanking him forward. He’s right in Jesse’s face, so close that Jesse can smell the cigarettes on his breath, see the angry veins protruding from his forehead. “You gonna help us out here, or what?”

Jesse turns to meet his gaze, eyes sharp and full of fury. “Fuck you.”

Jack looks over at his nephew, expectant, like he’s given him the lead here and is grading him on his performance. Todd is just staring at the hanged man with a cold look of disappointment. He slips on a pair of brass knuckles while he looks at Jesse with those cold, dead eyes, rounding the table of instruments to stand in front of him.

“You know, Jess, this’ll all go whole a lot smoother if you just answer our questions.” He says it like he’s speaking to a child. Jesse spits blood at him. Todd’s disappointment morphs to something else, something that’s somehow void of all emotion. Like someone’s flipped a switch in his brain. “I really think you’re makin’ the wrong choice, here, Jesse. Don’t try to be a hero.” 

Jack releases his hold on Jesse to reach for a pipe wrench on the table. “Don’t worry about it, Toddy.” He pats his nephew on the shoulder, a vicious smile tugging at the corners of his lips. Jack makes his way over to the hanging man, using the wrench in his hand to lift his chin. “We’ll make a martyr outta him.”

The wrench collides with Jesse’s cheek so hard that he sees stars, crying out into the empty warehouse, as if there’s anybody around for miles who could help him. 

\--

Jesse shoots upright in bed, taking in massive gulps of the fresh Alaskan air that filters in through the cracked window beside him. His heart threatens to beat out of his chest, and he clutches his shirt, trying desperately to slow his breathing. Early morning light filters in through the window by the bed, dousing the room in calm, cool tones. 

These nightmares are a near-nightly occurrence for him, and yet he still can’t seem to get used to them. Each one seems so real, so vivid.

There are always several seconds after he’s jolted awake that he seems to be suspended in some sort of limbo -- not quite conscious, but not quite asleep. Sometimes he’ll arise and find himself in that horrible cage again, staring up at a desolate sky from behind thick iron bars only to realize that what he’s actually seeing are the blinds throwing horizontal beams of light across the yellowed ceiling of his motel room.

Not this time, though. This time, he’s awakened to find himself somewhere wholly foreign -- which is somehow more unnerving than being in the cage. 

That underground crate had been his home for over six months. It had been the place he’d slept and ate and slowly chipped away at his own sanity -- it had been his home. It had been familiar. Anywhere outside of that cage feels like a hostile wasteland. His hands and feet don’t feel natural when they’re not cuffed together. It’s not a comfort to know that he’s not in Albuquerque anymore. That his hands and feet are no longer bound to his waist by chains. That he’s free. 

Jesse looks around the unknown room. He’s never been here before, and yet it feels… distinctly familiar. All of the furniture is wooden and expertly handcrafted, clearly custom-made and the work of a master. The whole place smells like fresh pine and rain -- the scent fills Jesse’s head, enveloping him in a strange sense of bittersweet nostalgia. There’s a wooden nightstand next to his bed, upon which rests a glass of fresh water on a lace doily.

There’s quite a bit of lace in the room, come to think of it. Delicate, cream-colored curtains hang from the little window next to the bed. A matching lace table runner sits atop a wooden dresser on the far wall, which has a tray covered in glass bottles of perfume and lotions. The quilted bedspread is old and faded and adorned with floral embroidery. There’s a cedar chest a the foot of the bed. It reminds him of his old room -- Ginny’s old room. 

Everything has a plainly feminine aura, yet it seems untouched, like someone just tidies up around the objects to preserve them but never touches them. There’s a visible layer of dust on the perfume. It hasn’t been used in a long time. The decor isn’t just for show -- it’s a reminder of an era long-passed. It’s sentimental.

The softness and familiarity of the furnishings eases Jesse into a sense of calm, though he’s still counting the seconds between his ragged breaths when someone speaks to him from across the room. 

“You’re awake.” 

Jesse turns his head sharply, met with the visage of the old man from the previous night. There’s a long, deep scar that runs in a straight line down the stranger’s face, from the arch of his eyebrow to the corner of his lips -- a scar that Jesse hadn’t noticed in the dim firelight of the night before. The eyelid seems to be scarred shut. Pinched. Slowly, the events of the past night begin coming back to Jesse. He remembers thwarting his own suicide attempt, being caught in a vicious rainstorm, and being offered shelter here, by this man. Apparently he’d taken it.  
Jesse doesn’t say anything, too consumed with the emotions in his head to formulate a response. He’s confused. Disoriented. Exhausted. He just nods his head dumbly.

The man gestures to the glass of water on the nightstand. “You should drink somethin’.” 

Jesse casts a hesitant glance at the water. Oh, he’s thirsty, alright. Dehydrated from the trek up the mountain and the trek halfway back down. His throat is on fire and his tongue is swollen in his mouth, but he doesn’t move, doesn’t reach for the glass. Jesse doesn’t trust this man -- this stranger. He knows his own limits -- he can go two days without any water, no problem. He went four days, once. 

“It ain’t poisoned or nothin’, son.” The man’s got a crooked smile on his face like he thinks it would be absurd for someone to poison a glass of water. Jesse scoffs. This guy doesn’t know shit. 

“I’m not your son.” Jesse’s surprised by the sheer amount of venom in his words and from the looks of it, so is the stranger. There are a few seconds of silence before he speaks again. 

“... Alright, well, I’ll just call you Jake, then. That’s your name, right?”

Jesse swallows. His throat feels like sandpaper. He doesn’t remember telling this man his name -- or rather, his fake name -- and if he acts too suspicious now, he’ll give himself up in two seconds flat. “Y-Yeah.” 

“Okay then, Jake. You wanna tell me what you were doin’ out there in that storm?”

“Um… not really.” 

The stranger seems to be growing frustrated with Jesse’s lack of cooperation. Jesse doesn’t care. He speaks again, his voice louder this time, clearly desperate for a change of subject. 

“Wanna tell me what you’re doing? Pickin’ up a random dude and putting him up in your house? Letting him sleep in your bed? What if I’m, like, a robber, or some shit?” 

The man scoffs. “I ain’t got nothin’ left for you to take, kid,” he gestures to the room around them, and though it’s filled to the brim with trivial items, Jesse knows that there’s something vital missing. He can feel it. “There’s clean towels in the bathroom if you wanna freshen up. If you’re gonna rob me, you can do it after breakfast.” He turns to leave the bedroom, the old floorboards creaking under his weight. 

It takes Jesse a few moments to swing his feet over the edge of the bed. He’s wearing clothes that aren’t his and are two sizes too big. He’s drowning in these clothes -- the way the old Jesse Pinkman used to do, with his multitudes of oversized, brightly colored hoodies. 

The familiarity of the clothing is much less comforting than that of the furniture. His old life is still too fresh in his mind. He’d left his old life behind at that warehouse, left his old self to die in that fucking cage right alongside Mr. White. Any reminders of his past self make his heart ache. He mourns for that failed high school student, for the boy who played the drums and held a great depth of untapped artistic potential, for the boy who never seemed to be able to live up to the expectations of others -- he mourns for Jesse Pinkman.

The stiffness of his muscles, the ache in his bones, is paralyzing. The cold air doesn’t help. He rolls his shoulders with a stifled groan, head lolling to the side until his eyes fall upon the fresh glass of water. Jesse stares at it for a while, casting a wary glance at the door like he expects the man to still be there, waiting for Jesse to fall into some elaborate trap. But the doorway is empty. It takes a few more seconds of internal debate before Jesse desperately takes the glass in his hands and downs the entire thing in three gulps. 

He stands himself up on shaky legs. First order of business is a much-needed shower -- something to wash away the stress and sadness of the night before, to try and cleanse himself of his memories even though he knows that no amount of scalding water can erase his trauma. He saunters out of the bedroom and down the hallway, locking himself into the bathroom and turning on the hot water until steam fills the room and fogs up the mirror enough that he doesn’t have to face his ghastly reflection.

\--

The tile floor is cold on Jesse’s bare feet. It takes him a fair amount of time to force his legs to move, to carry him out of the bathroom, shrouded in a plume of steam, into a hallway that’s decorated with framed black and white photographs of a young, happy couple. Jesse gazes at them as he walks by. He can hear faint music coming from the other room, along with the sound of a steaming kettle and a sizzling cast iron skillet. The hallway opens into a small kitchen, aging walls lined with a faded tiled backsplash. It smells like fresh coffee and old books. The stranger has his back turned to Jesse, bent over a cutting board. 

The living room mirrors the rest of the decor in the house -- faded couches draped with yellowed lace and a coffee table with another lace runner. There’s a fireplace crackling in the corner, where Jesse’s damp clothes are hanging, presumably left there to dry. There’s an old turntable near the front door, where a record spins lazily, vintage music spouting from the speakers. Jesse recognizes the voice -- Ella Fitzgerald. Aunt Ginny used to listen to her a lot. She’d bob her head along with the silky jazz while her pencil skittered over the pages of her worn-out sketchbooks, encouraging Jesse to do the same.

Jesse finds himself swimming in the smooth alto tones of Ella’s voice, his gaze running along the wall to take in as much detail as he can before the man turns around again.

The kitchen is small, adorned with ceramic containers labeled ‘flour’ and ‘sugar.’ Little moose figurines litter the countertops. Jesse picks up a moose-shaped pepper shaker, gaze lingering on the carefully painted statuette, when he’s pulled away from his thoughts again by the stranger’s voice. 

“You take cream or sugar?” 

Jesse sets the figurine down. “No, black’s, uh… black’s good. Thanks.”

The man hands him a warm mug of coffee and Jesse brings it to his nose, inhaling the scent and letting it envelop him. 

“I’m makin’ us some breakfast.” The man tells him. Jesse meets his gaze. 

“Yeah, I, uh… I can see that,” Jesse eyes the eggs and bacon on the skillet warily. There’s a long stretch of silence between them, filled only by the soft jazz from the living room, before Jesse speaks again. “So, like… who are you, anyway? Pickin’ up random strangers in the rain, making ‘em, like, eggs and coffee and shit? This a past time of yours?” 

“No,” The man sips his own coffee, an amused glimmer in his eye. “Usually I don’t make eggs.” 

Jesse continues to stare, obviously unamused by the attempted humor. It’s gonna take a lot more than that to get him to lower his guard. The stranger tries again. 

“Ain’t the laughin’ type, huh?” When Jesse remains silent, the man sets his coffee mug down on the counter, folding his arms. Jesse holds his coffee mug in front of him like it’s a shield, the only barrier between him and some unknown assailant. 

“I’m Benji,” the man reaches out to shake Jesse’s hand, dropping it when it becomes clear that Jesse has no plans to come within ten feet of him. “I’m not gonna hurt you. You looked like you needed help, is all.”

Jesse would be stupid to deny it -- he’s sure he looked pitiful standing there in the rain in one layer of clothing, shivering like a wet chihuahua -- but he tries anyway. “I can take care of myself.”

“That’s not what you told me last night.”

Jesse levels a hard stare at him. The record player in the living room falls silent, the steady skip of the needle letting them both know that the music has come to an end. What had Jesse said the night before? Something incriminating? Why is it that he can’t remember what had happened just hours ago? His mind is a stranger to him -- it blocks and remembers things seemingly for no particular reason. He can remember having his fingernails pulled out of his hands but he can’t remember coming into this cabin and falling asleep. 

Memories come to him in violent flashes, brought on by seemingly arbitrary things. The sight of hedge clippers in a toolbox had sent him into a two-day long episode of catatonia and disassociation at the last motel he’d occupied. He doesn’t know his triggers -- doesn’t know how he reacts to certain stimuli, or why he seems to block certain things from his memory while allowing other, horrible things to remain -- he doesn’t know himself anymore. Every interaction with a stranger is like playing Russian Roulette with a fully-loaded revolver -- something is bound to go wrong. 

It’s quiet for a long time. Benji meets Jesse’s intense gaze and he holds it, seeming to search the bright blue pools for something -- Jesse isn’t sure what, but whatever it is, Benji doesn’t seem to find it there. Jesse feels anxiety rise in his chest when Benji drops his gaze and turns away from him again. He takes a step back, fully prepared to fight for his life, only to curse himself for blatantly overreacting when he realizes that Benji’s just scraping the bacon and eggs onto plates. Jesse realizes, suddenly, just how hard it’s going to be to integrate back into organized society with this much venom in his blood. 

“Have a seat,” Benji says, sliding into the creaky wooden chair in front of his placemat, bringing his coffee with him. It takes Jesse several seconds to sit down, but he does it, taking too-big gulp of coffee and nearly choking around hot liquid before setting his mug down on the table. Benji reaches for the moose-shaped pepper shaker to season his eggs. “Y’know, Jake, a lot of people make that trek up this mountain -- and hardly any of ‘em ever come back down. Not the ones who get this far up, anyway.” 

That seems to stir something within the boy, but Benji can see him push it down immediately -- whatever emotion it might have been, Jesse’s face doesn’t display it. The boy’s been on the defense ever since he got here, forcing himself to keep a straight face and a level head through every move, every breath -- everything Jesse does is calculated. Deliberate. He’s had to learn to control himself in a very real way. Still, it’s a big change from the night before -- Benji couldn’t get the boy to say much, and what he did say had been so defensive and aloof that having an honest-to-god conversation with him had seemed like an impossibility. Jesse had been near catatonic, shivering with cold, only allowing Benji to wrap him in a blanket and sit him by the fire with a warm cup of tea after much coercion. But today, he’s lucid. Lucid and vicious. It’s obvious that someone’s broken his spirit before -- but every now and again Benji thinks he can see a hint of fight in those bright blue eyes. That’s what he’d seen last night. Fight. Spirit. He’d seen himself. 

“I know what you were planning to do up here last night, kid.” 

“Do you?” 

“Yeah.” Benji sets the pepper shaker down. “You were gonna jump, right?”

Jesse visibly recoils at the suggestion, as if the very thought feels like a punch to the face. But he drops Benji’s gaze to stare down into his coffee, and he doesn’t deny it -- so Benji continues. 

“Right. Like I said, kid -- lots of ways up the mountain, but most folks who climb all the way up only have one plan for comin’ back down. It’s not a fun-filled, temperate, nature-rich hike -- it’s hard. Takes hours in the cold, the path is rocky… no one comes all the way up here for recreation. Especially not this time of year,” Benji leans back in his chair. “I dunno what you’ve been through, or what led you up the path to this house, or whether you were on your way up or down when I heard you crying out there. But if you think I’m just gonna let it slide, send you on your merry way, you’ve got another thing comin’.” 

Jesse stares back in response like he’s waiting for Benji to say something else, but the man just brings his coffee to his lips and takes a long drink. 

Jesse throws up his hands, almost in defeat. “So, what the hell do you want from me, then?”

“I want you to tell me what you’re doing up here.” 

Jesse scoffs. He stares, incredulous, like Benji’s just asked him the dumbest fucking question in the entire world. Jesse leans back in his old wooden chair and it creaks in protest. “You just answered your own question, yo -- I was gonna fuckin’ jump. Congrats. You’ve got me all figured out, like, down to a tee.” Jesse’s obviously irate, his scarred face twisted into an expression of annoyance. “What do you care? We don’t know each other.” 

Jesse’s not sure why Benji looks so surprised. “... Is empathy out of stock where you come from, kid?”

Jesse stares at him like he’s lost his mind. “It’s out of stock everywhere, man.” There’s a long pause before he scoffs again, clearly distrustful. The first thing resembling a smile Benji’s seen from the kid stretches his scarred lips. “Is this, like, your plan? Get all buddy-buddy with me and help me out, make me your little pet project to make yourself feel better?” 

“I feel fine,” Benji bites into a piece of bacon. “You, on the other hand…” He gives Jesse a once-over, letting his sentence hang in the air for a few moments before speaking again.

“You got any friends here, Jake?”

Jesse shoots Benji an angry glare before he stares down at his coffee again. He wishes he could throw the words back in the stranger’s face, tell him that he doesn’t know shit and that he’s got plenty of friends -- but he can’t, because it couldn’t be farther from the truth.

He’s never been more alone in his life. Never has he felt more dissatisfied with himself, more lost and afraid and utterly broken. It feels like he’s never going to be able to form another meaningful connection with someone. He can’t even accept kindness from a stranger, because no one is ever kind to Jesse for no reason. There’s always some ulterior motive, some sinister impulse behind the kind actions of others. No one in this world is truly kind for no reason -- no one is selfless, no one is caring, no one gives a shit about the wellbeing of others unless it serves them in some way. At least, that’s how Jesse sees it, anyway. He feels anger bubble up into his throat.

He looks up to meet Benji’s eye once more, but his gaze is hardened, his heart surrounded by impenetrable iron armor. “No,” he leans forward on the table. “And I don’t want any.” 

“That’s too bad.” Benji washes his eggs down with another swig of coffee. “Seems like you could use some.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Look, kid,” Benji levels a stern glare at the boy across the table. “You may have climbed up here all by yourself, but you ain’t goin’ down alone.” 

Stunned silence fills the room and seems to stretch between the two of them like a rubber band about to snap. Jesse stares at the man across the table from him, as if searching for some sign, some indication, that his intentions are not what they seem. The two share a long look before Benji gets up again and saunters to the living room to flip the record. 

Jesse stares at the food on his plate, watching the steam rise from his meal and slowly waft into nothingness. He takes the moose-shaped pepper shaker in his hands again, staring at it like it holds the answers to all of his questions. 

Benji calls to him from the living room. “Better eat before it gets cold.” 

Soft music fills the cabin once more. The food feels like some kind of peace offering -- something that Benji wants to give to Jesse as a sign of trust or goodwill. It’s like the universe is giving him one final test, like it’s trying to tell him that this is the last chance he’s ever going to get to make a meaningful connection with another human being. It takes several more moments of internal debate before Jesse peppers his eggs and stuffs a forkfull of them into his mouth.


	3. 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear I haven't abandoned this fic! Shit has just been so crazy for me lately, and I haven't been writing as frequently as I would like. I'm so sorry for how long it's taken me to update. Rest assured, I plan to finish this fic! I won't let it go cold for this long again.

The winter here is not at all what Jesse had imagined. He’s only ever seen Alaska in postcards and the Simpson’s movie -- so it’s not like he’s had all that much to really go off of anyhow. No research, no actual knowledge of the terrain or the weather or the fact that the state itself is five times the size of New Mexico with less than half of the population. Alaska had been his choice of escape because it had seemed so far away from everything else. Far enough away that he could run from his problems and they wouldn’t follow him. Some isolated wonderland where everyone was kind and warm and the houses were all made of wood and there’s nothing but fresh air and trees and snow-dusted mountains in the distance; but that’s not what it’s really like.

Really, it’s just freezing cold and painfully lonely.

The days get shorter and shorter and soon there is nothing but darkness. The sun will begin to peek over the horizon, beating against the incessant downpour, changing the sky from its usual ominous blackness to a muddy, diluted red that seems to be put there especially for Jesse, just to remind him of the way his blood looked on that dirty concrete as it dried -- and then it’s gone again, and the sky is black, and it rains.  

It’s nothing but rain and snow and mud and seventeen hours of darkness a day. Those few hours where the sun rises just enough to set the sky alight with color, on the rare mornings where it isn’t raining, are Jesse’s only reasons for staying alive. The sky is a canvas splashed with orange and magenta hues and it looks like Georgia O’Keeffe’s Red Canna set against a deep blue sky, like angry wildfire on an infinitely calm cerulean ocean. The air is so crisp and so clear that Jesse can literally see forever when he’s up this high on the mountain. He can see miles and miles of forests and rivers that surround him, and the sheer beauty of it makes him wonder if there ever was a God, even if it only existed for a brief moment to create all of this. But that doesn’t last.

Nothing lasts.

The sun always sets again, and the darkness always returns. There is nothing that Jesse wants more than to return to the desert, where he’d left his heart, where he’d left pieces of himself that he knows he’s never going to get back. He misses the sun. He misses the low, soft peaks of the Sandia Mountains and the way the city lights used to twinkle at the base of that sunset kissed summit like a sea of stars.

Benji notices Jesse’s melancholy. It’s pervasive. It fills the house -- even the vinyl records he puts on every morning seem to spin a little more slowly. The otherwise cheerful, singsong voices that spill from the speakers seem a little flatter. A little more forlorn.

Homesick.

The winter here is hard for everyone. Humans aren’t meant to be thrust into perpetual night -- it fucks with their heads, like the darkness infests their hearts and minds and consumes their souls. Benji’s certainly felt it. Those who already have darkness in their hearts seem to fall prey to the clutches of Alaska’s infamous seasonal depression much more easily than those who don’t. People who can just leave when the sun disappears are lucky. They don’t understand what it’s like to live without it this long.  

No one does, really. Jesse included.

Benji is at a loss for several days. Jesse will go hours and hours without moving a muscle, only turning his head when Benji insists that he eat or drink water. He won’t sleep. He goes days without bathing. It’s like someone’s opened him up and hollowed him out, leaving behind the skeletal remains of a person who was once full of life. Benji knows the weight of this kind of depression better than most -- and he knows there’s no magic cure, that this is likely something that this man is going to have to learn to live alongside for the rest of his life. Something he must learn to understand if he’s going to survive.

Benji wishes that he had some ancient wisdom to impart on the kid. Some cosmic lesson that would change his life and his outlook and pull him out of this horrible slump. It’s clear that whatever had happened to him -- whatever had given him those scars -- hadn’t been left behind. It followed him here.

One night, it stops raining, and an eerie green light falls over the dewy elm trees outside of the cabin’s window.  Benji practically leaps to his feet.

“Kid.”

Benji’s voice is quiet. Almost too quiet to be heard over the crackling of the fireplace that Jesse seems to spend all of his time gazing into, longing, like he wants nothing more than to throw himself upon the crimson flames and return to the dust from whence he came. 

Jesse turns to look at him with vacant eyes.  

“You’re gonna wanna see this. Come on. Get your coat. It’s cold.”

Jesse stares for several seconds before he shuffles slowly to his feet, taking his jacket from the rack and following Benji out into the frigid November air. Their breath is visible beneath the bright moonlight that filters in through the pines. Jesse hadn’t realized how nice the fresh air would feel in his lungs -- how his mind would rejoice at the reminder that he is not trapped inside that cabin, that he’s free to leave whenever he wishes, and that there’s a whole world outside that has yet to be explored. He makes a mental note to spend more time outside.

Benji leads Jesse to a clearing in the trees and gestures upwards.

The Aurora Borealis throws bright streaks of green across the sky, slicing the very cosmos in half with light that flows like water, moving gracefully against the blackness. Jesse’s never seen something so beautiful in his entire life.

It’s quiet between the two of them for a long time. The only thing Benji can hear is the far-off pitter patter of residual rainwater dripping from the branches of the trees and onto the damp ground below. He could get lost in the sky. The bitter cold and the perpetual darkness pale in comparison to the mighty force of nature that is the aurora. Benji’s so focused on the northern lights that he doesn’t notice the sound of Jesse’s departing footfalls until he’s far up the path, quickly disappearing from view, sprinting like his life depends on it.

“Wait! Jake!”  

Terror grips Benji’s heart. There’s no way that that boy can make it more than a mile or two -- he’s far too emaciated, weakened from days without food and water, and he doesn’t know the terrain. The ground is damp, soon to be frozen over with ice. One wrong footfall, one slip, and Jesse would be lost to the world forever. Having survived something horrible only to die broken and alone on the slopes of Deer Mountain.

Benji takes off running after him, but his aging joints cry out against the bitter autumn air. He hopes Jesse doesn’t stray too far from the path.

\--

Snow falls upon Jesse’s face, coating his hair and skin in a layer of dusty white powder. His eyes flutter open and he finds himself staring up at a vast, white sky, grey clouds moving lazily through the open air. They make Jesse dizzy and he has to turn himself onto his side to avoid the impending motion sickness. The ground beneath him is frozen. He can feel the cold seep deep into his bones, so pervasive that it feels like he may never get warm again -- and when he looks back up at the sky, he realizes that he’s staring up at it from behind a layer of thick iron bars.

And he’s thirsty. God, he’s thirsty. His throat is dry as the New Mexico desert, and attempting to swallow does nothing but produce a 30-second-long coughing fit that he cannot control. The fit sends him rolling onto his other side, where his eyes fall upon his toilet bucket and a half-empty bottle of water on the dusty concrete floor. Jesse scrambles for it, taking it in his shaking hands and twisting off the cap with some difficulty. He tries to drink from it. It’s frozen solid, not having had time to thaw after the night's freezing temperatures.

Above him, he hears the snickering laughter of Kenny and the others, staring down at him from between those god-forsaken bars. They sneer at Jesse, watching him desperately trying to melt the ice in the bottle with his own waning body heat. It takes nearly all of Jesse’s willpower not to glare up at them all. 

“Hey,” Jesse tries instead, his voice hoarse. “I need water.”

He watches them all turn to each other and laugh, like the human they keep in a cage asking for water is somehow cheeky entertainment. Better than cable.

“You got some right there, Pinkman.”

Jesse looks down at his hands. He watches his own fingers curl around the frozen water bottle, watches the deep red skin of his fingertips darken to an almost lilac hue. It’d be beautiful if it weren’t equally as disgusting. He realizes he can’t feel his hands anymore. He has to speak through gritted teeth to keep himself calm.

Jesse had always imagined that fighting for his life would be so much more dramatic -- that it would involve more teeth and nails and less frozen water bottles. Having to assert his own humanity in the face of nine violent sociopaths proves to be as exhausting and futile as it is necessary.

“It’s… it’s frozen.” his tongue feels swollen in his mouth as he speaks.

“So what?”

He feels like he’s been abducted by a race of alien beings, sitting in a cage and trying to explain the concept of drinkable water to people with no empathy.  

They must’ve removed his tarp during the night. Must’ve turned off that heat lamp Todd had set up for him. Watched as the ground frosted over and the snow began to fall, rejoicing in the fact that the rat in their backyard would be buried in snow by noon. Jesse’s surprised it’s taken this long for his limbs to begin to succumb to second-degree frostbite, actually. He meets Kenny’s eyes with his own, icy and blue and frozen over with hate.

“So I can’t _drink it_ , asshole.”

Everyone remains silent for several long seconds before Kenny sticks a cigarette between his lips, sparking his lighter and taking a deep lungful of nicotine. The plumes of smoke mask his face and for a while, Kenny’s nothing but a faceless entity with no discernable emotion.

Jesse’s reassured by the notion that it’s far too cold outside for him to feel much pain if they decide to beat him again.

“Alright then, tough guy,” the malice drips from Kenny’s voice as he reaches down and unzips his fly. Jesse suddenly yearns for a physical assault in place of the hot stream of urine that falls upon his cheek. “I’ll give you somethin’ to drink.”

\--

Jesse jolts awake against the frigid Alaskan ground. It takes him several long moments to recognize that the snow falling on his face is no longer passing through iron bars above him. Instead, it filters through a canopy of evergreens and a sky alight with color. His coat is warm. He’s free.

He takes a moment to look around, to ground himself in the reality of this world and assure himself that he is, in fact, awake. He isn’t trapped anymore. At least, not literally.

_What am I doing here..?_

His intent comes back to him slowly, in pieces: he’d been struck down by the beauty of the Alaskan wilderness, and wanted to make it to the summit a second time; to get as close as he possibly could to the sky, to touch the heavens with outstretched hands.

He’d forgotten what it felt like to feel truly alive; to feel the blood rushing through his veins, to see the world in full color and real time as opposed to the horrible, badly-filtered mindscape he’d been trapped in for the better part of a month. He’d wanted to stand where he’d stood weeks ago and look down upon the world with renewed passion, and he’d wanted to cry his fucking heart out.

Jesse’s plans are forgotten, however, as Benji yanks him to his feet by the front of his jacket and pulls him into a tight embrace, his wide chest heaving against Jesse’s own.

“Don’t you ever do that to me again, you hear?” he sounds angry, but Jesse can tell by the warm tears against his shoulder that he isn’t.

“I-- um, I’m sorry.” Jesse stammers, still reeling from the abrupt human contact. “Are… are you crying?” He doesn’t know what to do with his hands, and he decides eventually to let them hang limply at his sides. He’s not sure that he knows how to give a hug properly, anymore.

It’s quiet for a while, with nothing but the distant rustling of trees to fill the silence. Jesse isn’t used to being held like this for so long without some measure of pain to follow, and he realizes, suddenly, that he absolutely cannot stand to feel so utterly smothered for more than a few moments at a time. He squirms out of Benji’s embrace, hands finding their way into the pockets of his jacket. He pretends not to notice when he sees Benji wipe his eye.

“Christ, Jake. What the hell were you thinkin’?”

“I, um… I…” he hesitates, as if Benji could never understand his reasons. “I don’t know.”

Jesse looks down at his boots and doesn’t meet Benji’s eyes again for the rest of the conversation.

“... Come on, son. Let’s get you warmed up.”

Benji puts his arm around Jesse’s shoulders on their silent trek back down the slope, and Jesse doesn’t feel the need to shrug it off again.

\--

Benji isn’t sure what exactly had possessed him to invite a complete and utter stranger into his home -- let alone one he’d stumbled upon in the woods, covered in scars and rainwater, looking like he hadn’t eaten a proper meal in months. He doesn’t seem like a threat, though; at least, not in his current state, soaked to the bone and catatonic in front of Benji’s fireplace with a blanket around his shoulders and an untouched mug of tea in his marred hands.

The rain is brutal and merciless. It pounds against the windows of the little cabin like it’s trying to reach the broken stranger on the inside and tear him apart. Benji’s never seen someone so helpless, so alone. The scars on his face tell a cryptic story of pain and brutality, the likes of which Benji knows better than most. The deep marks on the boy’s bearded face seem to come alive in the dancing light of the fireplace into which he’s staring, curled in on himself, draped in a thick knitted blanket. Even from the other side of the room, Benji can tell that the kid is still shivering.

It’s not an unusual occurrence for Benji to see people up here, clearly distraught, broken, alone, bent on leaping from the summit and ending their lives like that will dissolve all of their problems. But the problems _don’t_ go away -- only the people do. Benji’s never met someone whose troubles are actually too intricate to be resolved, or whose damages are too great to be repaired. There is always hope. For everyone.

“What’s your name, son?”

The kid opens his mouth like he wants to say something and then just shakes his head, gaze falling back to the dancing flames in the fireplace. There’s an uncomfortable silence that stretches between them. Benji can tell that this kid wants to talk -- wants to tell him about what’s happened and why he’s up here, but something is stopping him. Fear, maybe. The scars on his face make it obvious that he’s been through something positively horrific, something that most people probably wouldn’t survive.

“You know, uh… you don’t have to tell me your real name,” Benji casts a sidelong glance at the man sitting next to him, and he can feel the tension in the room build. “You can make up a new one. Leave the old one behind. Get a fresh start.”

Benji turns his head to look over at the stranger and finds himself met with an intense gaze. Like the kid is sizing him up, deciding whether or not to trust him.

“My _real name_ is Jake.” he snaps.

“Okay. Jake. Real name. Got it.” Benji doesn’t particularly care whether or not the stranger -- _Jake_ \-- is telling the truth. The important thing is that he’s talking.

“What are you doin’ way the hell up here, anyway, old man?”

“I live here.”

“Yeah. No shit,” Jake scoffs. “Why?”

There’s a long pause before Benji answers, like he’s deciding whether or not to tell the truth. “... I needed to escape.”

“From what?”

Benji looks over at Jake, motioning to the scar on his own face. It’s a nasty thing, thick and keloided. It takes up most of the right side of his face, still pink and angry like it’s fresh, even though it’s years old. Benji doesn’t say anything. Jake seems to understand regardless.

He gestures to the deep gash on Benji’s face, gaze softening. “You, uh… you do that to yourself?”

The question hangs in the air for a bit, like Jake already knows the answer. Benji shrugs a little. Jake seems like he needs honesty -- like he deserves it. So Benji decides to give it to him.

“No. Someone did it to me.”

Jake’s voice goes lower, quiet, as if he’s expecting someone to be listening. “Like, on purpose?”

“Yeah.”

“Why? What’d you do?”

Benji turns his head sharply, hating the fact that the kid’s managed to hit a nerve so quickly. He tries to be patient, to keep his voice level, because he wants Jake to trust him. Wants to help him walk down the mountain and be sure that he never feels low enough to make the hike back up again unless he plans to stand at the peak and look down at his bright new future, full of hope and happiness, and then make the hike back down again.

It’s been a long process, learning to channel his trauma into something positive and produce instead of destroy, learning to speak openly about it, to reflect on it. To grow from it. He hates the insinuation that what had happened to him was his own fault, and he can’t resist throwing the words back at Jake like they’re the only weapons left in his arsenal. “What’d _you_ do?”

Those blue eyes darken.

“Everything.” Jake says, and suddenly, Benji understands.

The answer to his question is written deep within Jake’s eyes -- that no matter what had happened to him, no matter how fucked up it was, he thinks that he had deserved it. Jake thinks he deserves his pain, his suffering, that his torment is somehow his punishment for the wrongs he’s done in his life, like some awesome karmic retribution. Benji can’t imagine what kind of wrongs Jake must have done to deserve the jagged scars on his face, on his hands -- can’t imagine anyone who would deserve that kind of misery except maybe the person who’d put Jake through it.

There’s a long moment of silence between them.

“Well,” Benji huffs, standing. “There’s fresh clothes in the bedroom down the hall. Dry yourself off, son. Things’ll be better in the morning.”

Jake scoffs like that’s the most absurd thing he’s ever heard in his entire life. He turns back to the fire and suddenly he’s gone again -- back to the limbo between reality and his own horrid mindscape. The only life in his eyes is that of the reflection of the fire, shimmering like gold against Jake’s bright azure eyes.

\--

The longer Jesse spends inside Benji’s cabin, the more details seem to come to his attention. Especially now that he’s snapped out of his brutal, month-long catatonia. It’s like a whole different place when he’s completely conscious; there are dozens of old, faded pictures on the wall, vintage magazines on the coffee table, faded leather jackets covered in pins and patches hanging in the hall closet.

Jesse stands in the hallway, staring particularly intensely at a black and white photograph of a handsome young man dressed all in black, sitting at a workbench and proudly holding up a wooden box for the camera to see. Jesse seems entranced with the box in the man’s hands. He can smell tung oil in the air, suddenly, and the cabin seems aglow with golden light, the knick knacks on the shelves covered in a thin layer of sawdust. It disappears in an instant, though, as Benji’s voice from beside him yanks him back to reality.

“You tryin’ to count the hairs on my head, son?”

Jesse barely avoids dropping the mug of coffee in his hands. “Jesus, man. Don’t sneak up on me like that.”

“Sorry.” Benji gestures to the photograph. “You like the box?”

Jesse seems to hesitate, as if the box pictured in the frame contained a multitude of awful things. Like speaking about it might open a can of worms. He gestures to the man in the photo.

“Yeah. I mean, I, uh… is… is this you?”

“Yes.”

“Do you -- um, I mean, did you… did you make that box?”

“Yeah. That was the first thing I made in my shop.”

“Your shop? What?”

“I own a woodshop. I’m a woodworker.”

“... You… you make boxes?”

The question is so sincere that Benji can’t seem to hide the smile on his face.

“Well, no, not so much anymore. I mostly make furniture now.”

Jesse looks around the house, at the custom furniture that litters it, and for a reason he can’t place, tears well up in his eyes.

“Did you make… everything in here?”

“Not _everything._ But, most things, yeah.”

Jesse’s quiet for several moments, staring at the fully-furnished living room, and soon he wanders over to the coffee table, setting his mug down to get on his knees and admire the craftsmanship. The table is made from pine, sanded to perfection, covered in a glossy finish and so well-preserved that it looks brand new even though the date carved into the underside reads 1984 -- the same year Jesse had been born.

“... Is this all hand-carved?”

“Mm hm,” Benji nods his head. “... You, uh… you interested in woodworking?”

“How long did this take?”

Benji doesn’t mind that his question seems to have gone completely ignored. He’s never seen Jesse so alive -- never seen his eyes so absolutely alight with intrigue, so full of hope and passion. It’s like someone’s flipped a switch in the boy’s head.

“Took me about a month.”

“Could you teach me?”

Benji’s head snaps up from his mug of coffee and he finds himself met with that intense, icy stare from that very first night. The part of him that had thought this could have been a joke is snuffed out like a dying candle. He’s never seen anyone look so serious about something. Still, part of him is unconvinced.

“... What?”

“Can you teach me how to do this?”

Benji’s at a loss for words for one of the first times in his life. “I, uh… I suppose I could.”

Jesse stands up again, the desperation shining through in his eyes so clearly that it physically hurts Benji to look him in the eyes. Jesse hasn’t had passion like this in far too long. Hasn’t had the opportunity to do what he really loves -- to create instead of destroy. To channel his trauma into something other than blatant self-harm and revenge fantasies. For the first time in his life, Jesse finds himself actively seeking out an opportunity instead of turning away from one.

He needs this.

He needs one last chance to prove himself. Not to Benji or Mr. White or anyone else, but to himself. He needs the chance to show himself what he can do. He has nothing left to lose.

“When can we start?”


End file.
